Misused: Instant Awesome Just Add Dragons

I'd consider that cleanup of what is already "gratuitous dragon", rather than a straight redefinition, but that's just me being pedantic

Although if we are using Gratuitous Princess as an analog here, that trope does not forbid plot-relevant princesses — but allows them if the plot could be exactly the same were they not a princess. Is that transferable to dragons?

I don't think so.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I think it could count if you could replace the dragon with any other species and the character's presence would still make sense. Dulcy the Dragon from Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) is an example of this, as she suddenly appears out of nowhere as a member of the Freedom Fighters, and is mainly there because dragons appeal to the target audience.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

I would caution that "replace the dragon with any other species" is so very subjective. Dragons act as a very easy shorthand for "fearsome monster" when antagonistic (same vein as Bears Are Bad News) and "stalwart fighter" when protagonistic (see How to Train Your Dragon and its many fearless fighting dragons).

So if a dragon appears and attacks the heroes, it's not necessarily gratuitous just because it could have been, say, a gryphon.

What I've seen many times are very obvious, non-subjective cases where there's a dragon on the cover of a book or other media while there is no dragon in the media itself, or some of the cases I mentioned in the opening post, such as where a dragon appears in Angel for literally two seconds just so Angel can hold a medieval sword and invoke a Dragons Versus Knights moment.

Don't forget that the "dragon" could actually just be a dinosaur by another name.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Dec 25th 2020 at 11:31:09 AM

Kirby is awesome.

Yeah, this is exactly the concern I had when it came to defining 'gratuitous'. There are certainly clear-cut cases, but I don't think that "this character didn't have to be a dragon" is ever going to be the sort of thing that can get broad agreement from tropers.

My idea is less "You could replace the dragon with anything" and more "The plot had no need for a dragon". It's less about the dragon's species being interchangeable and more about the dragon's species having no actual point at all.

In a crazy fight scene, replacing the dragon with a griffin still means there's a fearsome, legendary beast on a rampage. However, if the dragon is just another character and their species is never made relevant, then it's gratuitous.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

See, that's the part of "their role as princess is irrelevant" that I don't think transfers over. I don't believe that a dragon can really be substituted for by using a gryphon. There's associations of size/scale and magic powers (at least fire-breathing from Western dragons, spellcasting from Eastern) that aren't present in the gryphon species. As soon as you make the dragon an active character, I don't believe that can be considered gratuitous anymore. There's too many tropes/connotations with the fantasy for that to be possible. Slapping the image of a dragon on the cover to show it is a fantasy series, mentioning that so-and-so is a dragon-slayer, legends of a sword being made from a dragon's talon, those are substantially different from a dragon being part of the plot.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I don't know how much one example is worth here, but I do believe that I've seen at least one (B-)movie in which a gryphon pretty much did do the work of a dragon.

As I recall, the creature in question seemed to be singular, was summoned by powerful magic, was very big, and was devastatingly powerful. It was called up by an evil sorcerer in a bid for power, intending to overthrow two kingdoms, I think. Furthermore, killing the gryphon requires the finding of a special magical weapon.

(The movie in question is—if I've found the right entry—"Attack of the Gryphon".)

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This stipulation works for me.

So, what's the plan?

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So far we have:

• Merge into Garnishing the Story
• Rename
• Define as the gratuitous dragon concept. I can’t think of a good way to phrase “dragons are used to make something cooler/more fantastic without being plot-important”.

Yeah, I think that's everything.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Would merging with Garnishing the Story mean classifying it as a GTS trope, or would it mean completely folding it into GTS itself?

Edit: I just saw that Instant Awesome Just Add Indexes is already a redirect to Garnishing the Story, if that matters.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 20th 2021 at 7:04:26 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Defining it as the gratuitous dragon concept would be classifying the trope as Garnishing the Story. Merging would mean completely folding it into GTS.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

It had been a while since I last looked at the wick check in the OP (I didn't check it earlier), but after seeing how few of the wicks are actually gratuitous (eight out of 52), I get the feeling that the misuse is inflating the wick count and that we'd need to throw a lot of them out regardless of whether we merge the trope with Garnishing the Story or keep it separate.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Jan 20th 2021 at 10:48:57 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Yes, by "merge" I functionally meant cut/redirect and the functional examples get listed as Garnishing the Story.

Hmmm, I'm not sure what to do. I feel there is something here. Dragons definitely seem to have a notable concentration of gratuitous Rule of Cool applications, but how to get that defined is a good question.

I think the Magic: The Gathering example is the gold standard of what this trope should be: Dragons being so popular that they are forced into every set, even when that is contrary to the theme that the set will otherwise be entirely faithful to. If I recall (someone who's remained invested in the game can help vouch for this), while the game has a short list of "iconic big creature types" that get special treatment, dragons are on a tier above all others when it comes to "definitely will appear every time."

On the other hand, I don't think the Overwatch example is anything of note. They probably have a dragon theme because "dragons are cool", but other characters equally have other themes because those things are also cool.

I guess the question is, how many examples do we have that are like the Magic the Gathering one, and how can we make sure that the trope name and description laser-focus on that idea? Or is that too precise and too hard to prove in most cases?

Edited by Jokubas on Jan 21st 2021 at 2:37:58 AM

The Overwatch example — and anything involving a character that dresses up in dragonlike outfits that reflect a solitary, violent, dangerous personality — would probably just be Mythical Motifs.

Trying to reconcile this example with the "dragon that isn't plot-important" thing discussed previously. How would you describe the superfluousness without making guesses at creator intent? Is it that there are a greater number of dragon cards than other creatures (akin to "disproportionate # of princesses" in Gratuitous Princess)? What do you mean by "the theme of the deck doesn't have to do with dragons" (I have no familiarity with MTG and just kinda assume it's all High Fantasy, so dragons seem in theme to me). Are dragons used to advertise things even if they don't appear all that much, like Wolverine Publicity?

For quite some time now, every new set of cards for Magic: The Gathering is set in a new setting.

Sometimes the settings are genre themed (Innistrad is Gothic Horror), sometimes they're culturally themed (Theros is Greek Mythology), but there's usually something tying everything together, though it might be mechanics rather than flavor.

In addition, each Color in Magic: The Gathering has its "main creature types", races that tend to show up in those colors more often than not. Things like Angels for White, Demons for Black, Sphinxes for Blue, Dragons for Red, etc.

Every once and awhile, however, that trend will be broken for the sake of a theme. For instance, Humans didn't show up at all in the Lorwyn setting.

However, dragons are the exception to this. Even if the set is heavily themed off something that doesn't have dragons at all (for instance, Ancient Egyptian mythology), the other iconic creature types might sit out the set for the sake of the theme, but they will put dragons in the set anyway.

Edited by Jokubas on Jan 21st 2021 at 4:46:54 AM

Ancient Egyptian mythology has Apep, who is probably the closest thing to a dragon in the mythology.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 22nd 2021 at 12:43:56 PM

Kirby is awesome.

If a creature is reinterpreted as a dragon because that's cooler than, say, a giant serpent, then that sounds like it would count.

I agree.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Don't forget disambiguating between Garnishing the Story and Dragon Tropes/Our Dragons Are Different.

I still don't think that having a dragon-specific variant of Garnishing the Story is a good idea. I worry that it won't be well-defined and will induce people to create more questionable subtropes. Jokubas's idea has some merit - a Trope in Aggregate - but writing it up without it getting swamped by misuse isn't so easy.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman